Mick Colageo — At The Garden: Bruins need an improved Lucic for Game 2

BOSTON — Only minutes before the National Hockey League announced it had slapped Milan Lucic with a $5,000 fine for his snow-shovel lift between Danny DeKeyser's legs in the waning seconds of the second period of Friday's Game 1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, the Bruins left winger tried to explain himself.

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Posted Apr. 20, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Posted Apr. 20, 2014 at 12:01 AM

LUCIC FINED $5K FOR SPEARING

NEW YORK — Boston forward Milan Lucic has been fined $5,000 for spearing Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser during their opening playoff game. Lucic was fined by the NHL on Saturday for speari...

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LUCIC FINED $5K FOR SPEARING

NEW YORK — Boston forward Milan Lucic has been fined $5,000 for spearing Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser during their opening playoff game. Lucic was fined by the NHL on Saturday for spearing DeKeyser in the second period of the Red Wings' 1-0 victory Friday night. No penalty was called on the play.

The money goes to the Players' Emergency Assistance Fund.

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BOSTON — Only minutes before the National Hockey League announced it had slapped Milan Lucic with a $5,000 fine for his snow-shovel lift between Danny DeKeyser's legs in the waning seconds of the second period of Friday's Game 1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, the Bruins left winger tried to explain himself.

"I don't want to say it's too much (about) frustration. Obviously a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing when you're not thinking," said Lucic after Saturday's practice at TD Garden. "I've been in the league for seven years now, I think I've only done that three times. I don't know why I did it, but, like I said, it's one of the heat-of-the-moment things that unfortunately I did.

"I believe in, you know, playing within the rules. For me, (I) definitely won't be heading down that road again."

In the last meeting between Boston and Montreal here on March 24, Lucic put his stick where it didn't belong on Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin. This time the NHL called it spearing, apparently because it was the crime category that most fit the act.

Coach Claude Julien said he hadn't seen the video as of Saturday's practice. He was focused on how his team's game needs to improve to beat that stacked up interference game that the Red Wings are using to impede his top line's forecheck.

"I'm not going to discuss our adjustment for the right reasons here. As coaches, we agreed not to watch each other's practices," said Julien. "Scoring chances (Friday) were low on both sides so I think defensively both teams did a good job. It's about finding ways to create more offense, and that's what we talked about (Saturday) morning, that's what we discussed and what we tried to work on a little bit."

Possible returns for Matt Bartkowski, Kevan Miller and Daniel Paille won't go a long way toward changing things from an attack perspective. All three skated on Saturday, as did Adam McQuaid and Dennis Seidenberg. Chris Kelly did not.

"It doesn't matter what I think. They pay people to look at that stuff," said Babcock, who expects no lineup changes today (i.e. don't expect Henrik Zetterberg's name to come up at least until the Bruins win a game in this series). "I thought (Tomas) Jurco could have had a penalty for a free hand. I thought (the Bruins) could have had a number of penalties.

"They are what they are. I'm not interested in the referees solving any problems. I think the players are out there deciding who wins. I thought the game was officiated just fine (Friday) night, and both teams tried to be as disciplined as they could."

So what have we got here?

Far more than the juicy little nugget Lucic gave the highlight shows. What his moment really represents is a premature meltdown of good player at a crucial position.

It's actually about the hockey, and in order for the Bruins to even this series today (3 p.m., NBC, 98.5), their top line must show the kind of life that it showed in the third period of Game 1.

"From watching video and preparing, they play their system the exact way that we were expecting. Obviously, they played it really, really well (Friday) night and it gave them a win. We're going to have to find a way to find holes in their game and create more scoring chances and, obviously, get some by Jimmy Howard," said Lucic, who had one very close call late in the third period.

He redirected a shot that Howard deflected away from the left post. Johan Franzen sent it the other way, Justin Abdelkader took Dougie Hamilton out of the play and Pavel Datsyuk made a Guy Lafleur-like shot across the grain for the game's only score.

"If (my chance) kicks right — into the net — who knows what happens after that? But those are things that happen in the game. You can't let things like that frustrate you, and for us, I know for myself, just focus on Game 2 and what I need to do to be better and get one past him," said Lucic. "We've just got to do a better job of playing our game and establishing more time in the offensive zone. I think what's made us successful a lot of the times throughout the season is puck management. Obviously, that's going to be an important part of the series for both teams."

It is a lot like the Bruins' early predicament after Game 1 losses in their 2011 series against Montreal and Tampa Bay — with one crucial caveat: unlike those series, the Bruins are getting some hits on Detroit's defensemen, the kind that should accumulate over the course of the best-of-seven series and have their desired effect.

Only so far, those hit have not forced turnovers and created scoring chances.

"I think we were physical enough (Friday), we had a lot of good hits. But they do a good job when it comes to our forecheck," said Julien. "They like to have bodies in front of us, on the forecheckers, to kind of slow us down. We've got to find ways to get through that. There's no question about that.

"If they're going to slow us down when we're skating, hopefully they'll end up taking penalties, but we've got to work through those kind of things and establish a forecheck that we feel is an important part of our game."

Mick Colageo covers hockey for The Standard-Times. Contact him at mcolageo@s-t.com, visit Rink Rap at blogs.southcoasttoday.com/bruins and follow on Twitter @Mick Colageo.